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How Do Mental Health Issues Affect Your Orlando, Florida Family Law Case?

Mental health issues can affect your Marital and Family Law case in many ways. First and foremost, if your spouse has mental issues, they may not act reasonable following the procedure and requirements of the case. They may make unreasonable demands of you. They may not accept your reasonable requests. Such behavior causes the attorneys to do more unnecessary work than usual. That will be reflected in your monthly statement. 

What can you do about that? If you proceed collaboratively, you will have a mental health neutral that leads the collaborative team meeting. They are better equipped to deal with someone with mental health issues. 

Further, if you proceed by the litigation route, you can request a psychological evaluation on your spouse. However, you must show their mental health is in controversy and that there is good cause for a psychological examination action. 

If the party is severely mental ill and declared incompetent by a Florida court, then you may not be able to proceed with your divorce for three (3) years. 

What a client needs to understand is that there is a difference between a spouse who is unreasonable and one with genuine mental health issues. You can ask your client questions to weed this out such as:

1. Has your spouse been prescribed any medication for mental health issues?
2. Has your spouse been diagnosed with any mental health issues?
3. Is your spouse currently or have they ever been on disability due to mental health issues? 
4. Has your spouse ever been Baker Acted? When was the spouse Baker Acted? What was the outcome of the Baker Act?

It is important to know the answers to all these questions. You want to make sure that your spouse has the mental capacity to enter into a contract such as a Marital Settlement Agreement.  You want to know if they are capable of supporting themselves. That would be relevant to an alimony matter. 

You need to know if they are capable of properly caring for your children if you have them. Does their mental illness affect their ability to properly parent the children? These are just a few things to think about if you are in a Marital and Family Law case wherein someone has mental illness.  

If you have more questions regarding a Marital and Family Law matter, you may call Ann Marie Giordano Gilden at Ann Marie Giordano Gilden, P.A. at 407-732-7620 and set an initial consultation. You may also visit my website at: https://www.AnnMarieGildenLaw.com; and check me out on these other sites: Ann Marie Giordano Gilden on Facebook; Ann Marie (Giordano) Gilden on LinkedIn; and Ann Marie Giordano Gilden on AVVO and Lawyers.com. 

This article is for informational purposes only; and it does not form an attorney client privilege.